To keep you going until the other side of the cut just speculate on what THIS might be all about when bad guys line up against the Teen Wonder...

This is written by Mike W Barr in 1983, in "old school" mode, which means it's a story with a beginning a middle and an end, "done in one", with no need for angst or ghastly foreshadowing. It's also pencilled by Curt "I probably drew Superman more often professionally than anyone else in HISTORY" Swan so drink it up, it's some goooood stuff!We start with a father taking his, frankly, annoying little shit of son to a charity circus.. The kid is bored before he even arrives and resents having to stop playing his video game, he'd rather go and see the movie "Astro Wars" again...

I love the constant sense of movement in this page, I really, really do.

Well, that's not quite the show running through MY mind Ralph, but I'm a pervert. I LOVE Dick and Ralph's relationship here, they're professionals, but that doesn't mean you can't have some fun along the way.

Oh and we see the kid there with his dad is already playing with a videogame rather than watch the performance... Not only an ungrateful little shit, but clearly an absolutely heterosexual little shit.

Outside Clark Kent is covering the circus for his job as anchorman of WGBS TV (Why the hell he's out here when there are two superheroes performing for charity inside AT THAT MOMENT is a little beyond me, maybe they have some sort of licensing rights) when he is interrupted by three weirdly dressed guys...

Ah, the average Metropolis citizen, thick as a plank, bless 'em.

Inside the show is over and that means...

The Intangibles DO have a certain dramatic flair, no?

I think I see why Dick likes Ralph, he makes worse jokes than Robin does!

Anyway, Ralph tries to weave himself into a barrier to catch the elephant, but luckily Superman (who must have been somewhere nearby... good thing his secret identity doesn't involve standing in front of a camera as a breaking news story happens.. oh, wait... never mind.)

Elsewhere we see someone in an identical suit sitting at a control panel gloating cryptically "One down, three to go!" as Superman notes that X-ray vision shows nothing, and he can't grab the guy because he has no substance.

Oh dear.. that's three vision powers described... you don't think...

THIS little debacle is finally something the shit of a kid actually thinks is fun... His indulgent poppa proudly smiles, but it does look as if he's doing it through very firmly clenched teeth.

So the gang disappears into the thin air they might as well have been made from, leaving three stumped, but cute, heroes to try and work it out (Oh, and Ralph's quite serious about his nose never stopping twitching, it must really be quite unnerving to watch)

In panel three here Ralph, geek that he is, is the one to ponder what every geek ponders in cases where someone is intangible...

Either Robin has been watching The Exorcist too often, or he's turning his cape around , because I don't think non-gingold enhanced necks work that way!

So their entire performance at the circus on the East Coast was somehow done with holograms... I don't think holography works that way, even Jem needed Synergy and her remote microprojector earri... sorry, slipping geek gears for a moment there.

And AGAIN, a college age Dick gets a piggyback ride on Unca Clark, this time with the Elongated Man as his safety belt.. As Dr Seuss would have put it "Oh the fics you can fic..."

In California a movie event is taking place as an Intangible races up through a crowd (literally) and grabs the only copy of a new film from it's director, before making his getaway in similar manner. A couple of rentacops try to stop him with bullets, but the director shouts at them to stop, not out of fear of hitting an innocent bystander, but out of fear of hitting his multi-million-dollar film! (Nice guy!)

And as someone said when I first posted this... "Stealing Judy Garlands original Ruby Slippers? GAYEST... CRIME... EVER!!"

We discover that the Intangibles leader was the genius behind the Special Effects Department responsible for the massive success of AstroWars and Astrowars 2. He feels cheated out of all the money they raked in and is determined to become the leader of the top grossing CRIMINAL gang of all time! (Very Hollywood)

So essentially the Intangibles are Doug Trumbull, Phil Tippett and John Dysktra meet Mysterio...weird

Meanwhile...

I'm sure Paramount, Warner Brothers and 20th Century fox will be pleased to hear that!

The leader pulls a raygun connected to the intanigibility tech concole and fires it in Superman's face...

Since the energy powering the tech is derived from Superman's vision powers, the gang had hoped it would make Superman intanigble too, but instead it's "just" distorted his eyesight and destroyed his depth perception. Realising that he's a danger to everyone if he stats Superman flies off to try and sort out his problem.

Leaving the Teen Wonder and the Stretchable Sleuth to the tender mercies of a gang they can't touch...

Those bastards have kicked the worlds most perfectly formed bottom and possibly bruised the tushie of awe and wonder, clearly THEY MUST DIEEEE!!!!!

Meanwhile Superman (flying with his eyes shut and using echolocation to steer) has saved a plane whose wing had sheared off, and headed off to the one place he thinks can help... the SUN! Which he proceeds to stare into at close range.

And here we see Robin and Ralph proving that they are more than just a pretty face, and a freaky nasal twitch, respectively.

"... there isn't one!"

Of course that's Superman's cue to enter and point out that NOW there is and he's back to normal, by snapping on the rubber gloves!

Yeah Dick, you just keep telling yourself that Superman wasn't about to feed his urgent alpha-male need to hit something

Now wasn't that fun? Handsome superheroes getting along, solving crimes, and not a ghastly murder or anything grosser than the risk of boogers being flung at high velocity from rubberband like sinsues!

Oh, and before I forget, here's the cover by the legendary Gil Kane.. I'm not sure what Superman is smirking about there, but it scares me a little...